Shinoda Taro,Untitled, 2008, ink, watercolor on paper, 28 x 37.5 cm
Shinoda Taro
Drawings
Saturday, August 12 – Saturday, September 30, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 12, 16:00-19:00
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-19:00 (Closed on Mon, Sun, Public holidays) ＊Closes at 17:00 on Friday, September 1
Summer Holiday: Tuesday, August 22 – Saturday, August 26
Press Release
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MISA SHIN GALLERY is pleased to present an exhibition Drawings by Shinoda Taro, who met with an untimely death in August 2022 at the age of fifty-seven, from Saturday, August 12 to Saturday, September 30, 2023.
Shinoda Taro is known for his large-scale installations. These include an outdoor installation created for the Sharjah Biennial in 2015 featuring a karesansui (dry landscape garden) in which depressions in the form of inverted cones gradually formed in the sand due to sand falling out of holes below the garden, together with an engawa (veranda) from which the garden could be viewed; a sculpture-like work installed in an art museum at the Biennale of Sydney in 2016 in which viewers on a tatami platform viewed white clay on walls that cracked, peeled, and fell away as it dried, exposing red clay walls underneath; and a large, transparent balloon in the shape of a cloud that was floated in the sky at the Reborn-Art Festival held in Ishinomaki, Japan in 2021.
Shinoda consistently created drawings in ink and watercolors as part of the production of these large-scale works. Shinoda himself, or a naked man thought to be his alter ego, appears in many of them, including drawings depicting nature, such as trees, shorelines, and deserts, and drawings depicting installations thought to be his own works. Seeing these sensitively rendered drawings of the artist with a calm expression on his face, pointing at or viewing the art from an engawa or tatami mat, or gazing upon it from the ground, one gets the feeling that he was looking out over the world through his art, from his own distinctive perspective.
Shinoda Taro, Untitled, 2020, ink, watercolor on paper, 28 x 37.5 cm
While he was still alive, Shinoda developed the concept for this exhibition, which presents thirty drawings made between 2004 and 2020. Working from his beginnings as a student of landscape gardening, Shinoda continually questioned the relationship between nature and humanity and culture, and the new directions they could take, through the processing, manipulation, and abstraction of nature. Rendered with care and abundant freshness, the lines in these drawings are linked to Shinoda’s sublime thinking, which links nature with the universe.
An opening reception for the show will be held from 16:00 to 19:00 on opening day, Saturday, August 12.
篠田太郎 Shinoda Taro
1964-2022. Born in Tokyo. Studied landscape gardening before becoming a visual artist. His wide-ranging work encompassing sculpture, video works and installation delves deep into the relationship between humans and nature, receiving substantial international acclaim. His works are in collections including Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Nissan Motors Co., Ltd., and The Museum Of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles). Major exhibitions and projects include Saitama Triennale (Saitama, 2020), Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin, 2019), Sydney Biennale (Sydney, 2016), Sharjah Biennale (Sharjah, 2015), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2010), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2009), and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (Hiroshima, 2002).